"How are you today?"
Those people with high resilience don’t give up energy or flip into annoyance when a telemarketer appears. Years ago, a salesman came to the door. He looked straight at me and asked,”Is the boss, at home?” In that moment I anchored distaste for those in sales. I’ve matured and now some of the finest people in my circle are sales folk. Yet, there has been one area of sales that stumped my sense of grace.
Then, I attended a workshop with Alice Wheaton, Canada’s foremost cold calling trainer. You might ask, “Patricia, you weren’t really taking training in cold calling were you?” Yes, I was. Yes, I did. I thought to myself, “Now I will be some one else’s annoying caller.”
Alice helped change all of that. She solved my telemarketing dilemma. She instructed us to adopt not only acceptance, but appreciation, for the telemarketer who is attempting to make a daily living by informing others of some kind of opportunity or maybe even a solution. Isn’t that what I am doing when I call conference planners—offering a solution to their program needs? My attitude shifted.
Then she offered this considerate, yet assertive, statement for speaking to telemarketers, who after all, are doing the best they can in their jobs: “I don’t need your product at this time and I appreciate the courage it took to call today.” May you, like me, be at peace with telemarketing.
What is your experience with telemarketing and/or cold calling?
